California’s data broker registry now lists 625 companies. For the first time, each one had to say whether it sells data to the government, the police or AI developers, and 100 said yes to at least one.
The answers come from the brokers themselves, in the yearly registration California’s Delete Act requires. We analysed the full 2026 registry, the two years before it, Oregon’s registry and every Delete Act fine the state has issued. No sampling, no estimates: every number below comes from a public filing or decision, and you can download our dataset at the end.
Data as of November 8, 2026. California’s registry file was last updated on October 30, 2026.
Key findings
- 625 data brokers are registered in California in 2026, up 15% from 543 in 2025.
- 100 brokers sold or shared data in the past year with the federal government, other states, police, AI developers or a “foreign actor”. 30 supplied law enforcement without a subpoena or court order requiring it.
- 116 brokers collect precise geolocation; 14 of them sold or shared data with the federal government.
- Brokers received 58.0 million deletion requests in 2024 and denied 890,655. One location data company, Cuebiq, received 45% of them.
- 22 brokers gave California and Oregon conflicting answers about whether they collect government ID numbers or biometrics (our comparison).
- California has issued 17 Delete Act fines since November 2024, $731,090 in total, and more than 500,000 Californians have signed up for DROP.
Source: Privacy Affairs · 2026-11-08